Adding UIEGA disclaimer to Affiliate Site

[Sebastian]

Hey Guys,

In an effort to optimize conversions I'm thinking of adding a UIEGA disclaimer to the right sidebar of my sites. I'm trying to gage whether it will actually achieve its purpose.

Every post would have a box in the sidebar to this effect :

• What is the UIEGA and does it affect you ?

The copy underneath would explain that the legislation remains transparent from a player's legal point of view, etc...

It seems like a double edge sword though, because some players may have never heard of it ... and it may act as a scarecrow.

My idea was to give players more confidence to deposit.

What do you guys think ? Looking for quality advice from PAL members.

Thanks

Seb

[jdwanchalk]

Eh, I'd say you are probably risking more by adding it than you would ever stand to gain. If someone landed on your site, odds are that they don't care about the UIGEA anyway. Yea, there might be 1% of people who know of the UIGEA and are contemplating whether or not to play for real money, but it's not worth scaring the other visitors away.

[Sebastian]

Thanks Jonathan,

I've also received a PM with similar advice.

So far 2 against this idea, and 0 for.

What might be a good alternative is to add a navigation tab/page called "UIEGA".

This would do a few things:

1) The UIEGA disclaimer would be masked everywhere else
2) Only users with knowledge and or interest in UIEGA will go to the information
3) It might help convert that small percentage of undecided depositors.

Seb

[PokerDude]

Sebastian,

By all means, put up a disclaimer. To date, Affiliates have not been prosecuted, but one never knows in the future. I think it would be best to do so, to protect yourself. Most won't read it, and I doubt that you will lose any significant portion of business from it.

[pokerprop]

Very few disclaimers ever have legal weight. Disclaimers are good when writing about things that you're certain are true yet you don't have enough evidence or the proper lawyers to defend yourself in court. These should be explicitly stated with emphasis given to the statement not necessarily using the word disclaimer.

A "this site is for entertainment purposes only", or a "not responsible for loss goods" type disclaimer provides only an extremely minor level of defense to the point it might not even be worth the ink that prints them on the back of valet tickets so to speak.

That is a response to above post.

As far as conversion tool. Pass on mention of UIGEA imo. Go with: USA Credit Cards Accepted - Play Poker Now! or tag lines like this then give a page on banking options if you are concerned and feel the need to put something. Just don't be shy and accept that no matter how you go about doing this your targeting of the US market is a crime, and the advice I just gave you is also felony conspiracy which is a crime as well. So let me add the disclaimer: "I was only joking. marketing to USA players is a crime and i am not supporting that and suggest you do not as well".

[Tim]

Educating players is always a good idea. But your stated intention is to increase conversions, so I don't believe this is an effective method. Of course it depends on your audience.

[MPC]

The way I see it, if someone searches specifically for a UIEGA term, it's not because they're looking to sign up to a poker room. They probably already havbe an account and are wondering if this affects them or not. Someone just looking to play poker online will likely never start by searching for UIEGA terms. Bottom line: You'll likely increase traffic, but it won't be converting traffic.

Plus, you're really just openining a can of worms that doesn't need to be opened. If you want to adress the topic, go with a "is online gambling legal" approach. That's what people really want to know, and many of these people don't even know about UIEGA. And of course, your final answer, after you present a list of facts, should be "I don't know" or "decide for yourself". I think the traffic you would get from "is online gambling legal" would convert better than from any UIEGA keyphrase.

My opinion anyway.